The sale of a luxury yacht once owned by former dictator Saddam Hussein, moored until recently off France, has met with muted interest from would-be buyers, the legal firm overseeing the operation said yesterday.

The Iraqi government said on Sunday that it planned to sell the Ocean Breeze, one of the many opulent treasures that belonged to Saddam, and that the pleasure boat would probably be sold within weeks. That confirmation followed a report in Britain's Sunday Times which said the 270-foot yacht, featuring gold-tap bathrooms, a helicopter landing pad and a secret escape passageway, should fetch $30 million.

Legal firm Cohen-Amir Aslani-Marseillan-D'Ornano & Associates confirmed that the sales process had begun but had not yet attracted much solid interest.

"Given the current economic climate, clients are not falling over themselves (to make the purchase)," said one executive, noting a deafening silence from potential buyers.

Ocean Breeze had been the object of legal wranglings in the past with Jordan, which had claimed it as its own, before the yacht was handed to the Iraqi government last year, legal sources said.

While grand when it was built in 1981, the Ocean Breeze is puny compared with megayachts commissioned by a new wave of super-rich, including a 115-metre $300 million yacht owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich which boasts two helicopter pads.

Frozen mice cloned

Japanese scientists have cloned mice whose bodies were frozen for as long as 16 years and said yesterday it may be possible to use the technique to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species.

Mouse cloning expert Teruhiko Wakayama and colleagues at the Centre for Developmental Biology, at Japan's RIKEN research institute in Yokohama, managed to clone the mice even though their cells had burst.

"Thus, nuclear transfer techniques could be used to 'resurrect' animals or maintain valuable genomic stocks from tissues frozen for prolonged periods without any cryopreservation," they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ancient shaman grave site found

An ancient grave unearthed in modern-day Israel containing 50 tortoise shells, a human foot and body parts from numerous animals is likely one of the earliest known shaman burial sites, researchers said yesterday.

The 12,000-year-old grave dates back to the Natufian people who were the first society to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, Hebrew University of Jerusalem researcher Leore Grosman and colleagues said.

"The interment rituals and the method used to construct and seal the grave suggest this is the burial of an ancient shaman, one of the earliest known from the archaeological record," they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

World's youngest reigning monarch

High in the Himalayas, in an ancient ceremony, a young, handsome king will be anointed tomorrow, wearing the Raven Crown of Bhutan and taking his place at the head of the world's youngest democracy.

With his formal coronation, the 28-year-old Oxford-educated Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck becomes the world's youngest reigning monarch and perhaps one of Asia's most eligible bachelors.

Three days of national celebration will follow in the tiny nation sandwiched between India and China, masked dances and ancient rituals ironically marking another stage in Bhutan's gradual emergence into the modern world.

It is part of a process of cautious and calibrated modernisation driven by the new king's father, 52-year-old Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who abdicated two years ago after forcing his reluctant and largely adoring subjects to accept democracy.

After a two-year wait for an astrologically auspicious date, the Fourth King will place the crown on his son's head in the throne room of Thimphu's huge, white-walled Dzong or fortress, to bring his own, 34-year-long reign to a formal close.

Jail-break candidate barred from election

A popular opposition politician accused of corruption who escaped from jail last year and fled to Peru cannot run for re-election as governor of the Venezuelan state of Yaracuy, the country's top court ruled yesterday.

The decision opens the way for an ally of President Hugo Chavez to win a tightly contested election for governor of the small farming state.

Venezuela's Supreme Court said former governor Eduardo Lapi, who apparently escaped from jail through an air conditioning duct, was not eligible to stand again in elections later this month.

"Eduardo Lapi escaped from San Felipe prison to avoid justice, excluding himself from his political rights," the court said in its ruling.